The new hire was 15 minutes late, although fans craving burgers or brats at the Wild season-ticket holder barbecue Aug. 20 on Raspberry Island hardly noticed Craig Leipold slipping into character in the food tent.

“Hi, everybody. How we doing? I’m Craig. Good to meet you,” he said.

Some recognized the David Letterman look-a-like as the first-year team owner and welcomed him to Minnesota with a handshake. A few snapped quick pictures. Others simply chose their meat over a meet and greet.

“It’s not fair. I should be serving beer,” quipped Leipold, 56, casually dressed in camp shirt, blue jeans and sandals.

And so it went for two hours as Leipold cracked wise introducing himself to a loyal fan base hungering for more than a division championship and another first-round playoff exit.

The Wild enter their eighth NHL season without founding father Bob Naegele Jr., who earlier this year sold his $70 million investment to Leipold’s ownership group for $260 million. Minnesota opens its season Saturday against Boston at the Xcel Energy Center.

Leipold, who owned the Nashville Predators for 10 years, knows the passion of hockey fans despite mixed results in Dixie.

Whereas the buttoned-down Naegele ran his team with measured detachment, randomly parachuting in from Florida to watch games, Leipold regularly attended Predators games and always seemed one dare away from painting his face to support the team.

During games, fans won’t see Leipold topping drinks and holding court in his suite. Look for the guy sitting alone, squeezing his game notes into pulp and barking at television replays.

Once, after a tough loss in Nashville, Leipold shattered a sports drink bottle in his coach’s office, leaving Barry Trotz and his staff to contemplate the blue liquid dripping from the walls when they arrived.

Leipold’s friends and peers reveal the charming side of a businessman who initially wanted an NBA team but fell hard for hockey.

Described as a fan who happens to be a multimillionaire owner, Leipold is at ease in the boardroom, on the golf course or pressing flesh by the grill.

He is a guy’s guy with a disarming nature and salty sense of humor. A casual Chicago Blackhawks fan growing up in Neenah, Wis., Leipold’s first love was the Green Bay Packers, which he sheepishly acknowledges in Vikings country.

Among his most prized sports memorabilia is a ticket stub to the legendary “Ice Bowl” game of Dec. 31, 1967, when the Packers defeated Dallas in sub-zero conditions to win the NFL championship game.

Leipold launched his business career in the 1970s at Kimberly-Clark Corp., where his father, Werner, was an executive. He made his mark in telemarketing and selling raingear before marrying into the Johnson family fortune (think: Pledge, Windex) in Racine and then jumping into sports ownership.

Leipold, who moved into his 2,400-square-foot penthouse suite at the St. Paul Hotel after the Republican National Convention, sat down with the Pioneer Press for an interview this summer, shortly after assuming control of the team.

You made it clear coming in you’re going to tweak and not overhaul. How will fans know this is a Craig Leipold team?

That’s a question that gets answered after a period of time. That’s a cultural thing. I think we’re a quiet franchise. We’re kind of a secret here, how good we are. In the era of free agency, this should be a destination location.

Why?

Because of the fans. Because of the market. This isn’t the Deep South. This is where hockey is respected, understood, loved. If I’m a player, I like to play in those environments.

They’re going to want to win, too.

It’s hard to get more than one marquee player on the team because of the salary cap. But you can get a couple more if people are willing or interested in doing a little bit of a discount. Look at what’s going on with Detroit. It’s not because they love the city of Detroit. They have a culture of winning and players want to go there.

Like Marian Hossa?

Exactly right. We’re on everybody’s short list, but we’re not No. 1. (Peter) Forsberg last year, we were on his short list of one or two teams. Hossa this year, we were absolutely on his list. (Ryan) Malone? One or two teams. But we’re not No. 1.

Financially competitive with what was being offered those players (Hossa, one year, $7.4 million with Detroit; Malone, seven years, $31.5 million with Tampa Bay)?

In the case of Hossa, a lot more. Malone? Absolutely competitive. It was not a monetary issue.

Why would you ever invest in a hockey team in the South?

We did so many right things that worked out. We failed in the most important part — we didn’t get everybody buying into it.

How did your role evolve on the league’s executive committee during the 2004-05 lockout? You look at those names, Jeremy Jacobs (Bruins), Harley Hotchkiss (Flames), Lou Lamoriello (Devils) — the old lions — and then Craig Leipold, that new guy from Nashville. How did you fit in?

I never asked to be on a committee, but every time I was asked to be on one, I was always available and would attend every meeting. I prioritized it. So you have that persona that you’re willing to spend your time and get involved. I would say I’m probably one of the five or 10 owners considered active.

Define active owner.

Involvement in the team. I’m involved in sponsorship sales, ticket sales and managing the team. A passion for the game. And willing to spend a lot of time doing it versus time doing other jobs.

Re-reading accounts of those touchstone moments during negotiations, you were described as one of the hard-liners. What does that mean?

Interesting description. Hard-liner as it pertains to a cap system — linkage to revenue? If that’s what they meant, then I agree I would be considered one of those hard-liners. But I think every owner in the league was.

When the rubber was hitting the road in negotiations, what were you trying to convey?

There was no fist pounding on the table. We all agreed that we needed 30 successful franchises, that if you have five weak links out there, then we weren’t going to be devising the right system. You had to have a cap and revenue sharing.

Is it the perfect system? No. Is it worse than we thought it was back then? Probably. We didn’t think the cap was going to go this high this quickly.

Because revenues are up?

League-wide revenues are way up but there’s disparity in where they’re coming from. Small-market teams aren’t seeing the same kind of growth that the bigger market teams are so the small-market teams are beginning to struggle again getting up to the midpoint.

Is that a reflection of sponsorship dollars in particular markets, local broadcasting? What are the biggest components?

Local broadcasting is probably the biggest part. The local broadcast numbers for Minnesota, Detroit, Colorado, New York are doing strong. The smaller market teams aren’t growing at the same rate.

Why was there such tepid interest in Nashville?

It’s a cultural thing.

Is that anything you didn’t know going in or were you too optimistic?

Both. Nashville is a market where people who were raised in Nashville go to college in Nashville, they go back to work in Nashville. It was a little harder to break into that culture, and I should have known that. The fans in Nashville are great. They’re rabid. They’re vocal. They’re passionate. There just aren’t enough of them.

Do you consider your investment there a failure or a learning experience?

I don’t consider it a failure. I look at it as I was the caretaker there the first 10 years and I’ve now passed it off to some local guys, and hopefully they can take it to a level I wasn’t able to take it to. If the team ends up cratering and moves out, then I would say I was not successful.

In Minnesota, where were you at the draft and offseason process? Are you in the war room? Are you on the telephone talking to Doug Risebrough? How does that dynamic work?

This is absolutely Doug’s role. He has been absolutely fantastic to permit me to be in the inner circle, on the floor of the draft. He knows I like that.

You don’t have to ask permission, though?

No, this is his job. I’m very respectful of the process and the traditions of hockey, and the way it should be. I don’t want to be an owner that pushes my way in. These are Doug’s decisions. Early on, I said if you ever take whatever I say and think I really know what the hell I’m talking about, then you’re in trouble. I represent our team of 18,000 and give him input as to what our fans would probably let him know about players.

Do you see yourself being an advocate for acquiring a particular player — like Kariya and Forsberg — or was that unique to Nashville’s situation?

Players of very high stature, if the owner can be helpful in recruiting them onto the team, that’s a role I’m happily able to play. They want to know, “How committed is the owner?” They want to know more than just how much I’m going to get paid. You have to respect somebody that wants to hear that because it shows they’re going to pick a team for the right reasons. I don’t negotiate salary. All I do is philosophically explain where our priorities are.

Clearly, you hold veto power in negotiations and personnel.

From a players’ standpoint, we have a budget. Doug knows what that budget is, and he can go out and mix it up any way he wants to. If he ever wants to go outside that budget, just like any other person in our organization, he has to come back and say here’s why, and then you make a business decision.

What is the difference between business fulfillment and sports fulfillment?

My friends refer to this as my cocaine. I love this. When you win and you make the playoffs, the excitement is euphoric. It is such a high. Losing is such a low, and I hate this with a passion. To be able to experience those highs and lows, I like that. To financially have the wherewithal to get involved in this, to take a risk, this is gambling as well. It has all the on-the-edge aspects or excitement levels that I find very appealing. It’s cool.

Brian Murphy has been on the Pioneer Press sports staff since 2000, migrating from the Detroit Free Press, where he covered police, courts and sports for four years. Murphy was the Minnesota Wild/NHL beat writer from 2002 to 2008 and has covered the Vikings as a reporter and columnist since 2009. Murphy is a Detroit native and Wayne State University graduate.

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